This background section is provided for the purpose of generally describing the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventor(s), to the extent the work is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure.
As companies embrace open office environments, employees find themselves working in closer proximity to each other. Moreover, due to intraoffice collaboration, individual employees may find themselves at their desks with surprising infrequency. Telephone ringtones are the most common method of alerting a user to an incoming call at his or her phone, especially for desk-based phones that are not worn on the person or otherwise kept in intermittent or constant physical contact with the user such as in the case of cellular phones. In environments where users work in close proximity to each other, a desk phone's ringer can annoy neighboring users, especially when the ringer of the phone has been set to an elevated volume, and/or the user whose phone is ringing is currently or frequently not at his or her desk.